


In Manus Tuas

by mildred_of_midgard



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, The Iliad - Homer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Canon-Typical Misogyny, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 15:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8850511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildred_of_midgard/pseuds/mildred_of_midgard
Summary: AU in which Patroclus is sent not to Achilles' father after an inadvertent slaying in his childhood, but to a city in the Troad. He meets Achilles only in the war, when they fight on opposite sides, and he is captured.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this many years ago and dug it up today. It was supposed to be the first chapter of a longer AU, but nothing more ever gelled in this universe, so here, have this.

The usual chaos after a battle: the groans of the wounded, and the scrabbling for war prizes by those fit to stand. Achilles joined them because if he held back here, Agamemnon and Diomedes--the others would know better--would be lording it over him in council and at the feast. He was feeling particularly dissatisfied today, though. Gold was never his weakness, and the acquisition of more captives was fine for those who needed variety in their bedmates, but how many women did it take to weave one man's clothes and carry water? Briseis was quiet and efficient, and pleasant enough, and she suited him well.

Achilles sighed and tried to look interested in a debate over whether this one would clean up pretty or not. He wanted to get back to the camp, where he'd told his therapon Automedon to put one of the young men Achilles had taken alive during the fight. He looked pretty badly wounded, but he might live for ransom.

At last he was free to go, and he hastened back. Automedon shrugged when Achilles asked how the captive was faring. "He's been unconscious since you dragged him off the field, and now he's feverish and vomiting. He'll simply be one of your kills who died from wounds administered during the battle. I can go back and run him through with a spear, if you like, put him out of his misery."

Achilles drew his knife. "I owe him that much, at least. I'll do it."

The prisoner did indeed look like he was on his deathbed, unnaturally pale where he wasn't grey, and leaking blood from poorly bandaged wounds. Impatient, Achilles shook his head. Chiron would never have let him get away with work that poor. Enemy or no enemy, he'd have said to do it right or not do it at all.

Before Achilles realized it, he was crouching beside the prisoner, wielding his knife as Chiron had taught him, healing the deeper wounds and cutting new lengths of cloth to cover the surface wounds properly.

Phoenix, another of his old tutors, a mortal one, came over to Achilles while he was working. He sat down, bending his knees rather stiffly, on one of the low seats. "Seems a lot of trouble for someone you tried to kill," Phoenix pointed out mildly.

"I didn't try to kill him. He didn't flinch or take a step back, and I did more damage than I'd calculated. I was trying to take him prisoner."

"Then you brought him back here, instead of finishing him off?"

"He fought bravely," Achilles said, not looking up. He knew what a crazy impulse it was: many men had fought bravely that day, and many lay dead. As Automedon had said, what was an enemy slain, one more or one less? But pride and stubbornness kept him going. He had started this, and he would finish it. "He fought bravely," he repeated.

"And he caught your eye?"

Too occupied with what he was doing to conceal his reaction, Achilles shrugged, not denying it. Then he snapped, "I haven't gone soft!"

Phoenix snorted. "You don't know what soft is. I was about to say that the men won't like it, some of them could use your skills as much as this man--some of them probably received their wounds from this man--but no one's ever thought you healed out of compassion. You heal because you're the best," he said, with a mixture of pride and exasperation.

Achilles' lips tightened as he finished stitching this gash down the man's side. "I do everything because I'm the best. It's never been a problem that I'm helping the sons of Atreus fight their war because I'm the best."

Phoenix rose and touched him on his shoulder on his way out. "As long as you know you can't keep him."

"I know I can't--!" Achilles swore under his breath. Let someone teach or care for you as a child, and they will forever be telling you things you already know. Achilles was the greatest warrior in the army, and he hadn't met his equal in anyone they'd faced, either. He knew the rules of warfare. Men were killed or sold, women were kept to serve their new masters in whatever capacity they required, including in their beds. He could claim the right to bed a man, perhaps, in the day or two before he sold him, and he could certainly have his share of encounters with whatever Achaean soldiers were willing, and there would always be plenty. He was the best-looking man in the army, the son of a god, and he knew that too. But could he keep one by his side, reliable, through the years, the way he could with a woman? Any man worthy of the name would avenge himself on his captor, or die trying. Even the young sons of men slain in battle must be killed, if their fathers were not cowards.

"I don't know why you think I want to," he called. "I want to collect the ransom I'm entitled to."

But Phoenix had already left.

* * *

The problem grew more complicated in the days to come. The prisoner regained consciousness under Achilles' care, still feverish and confused at first, but with enough of his senses to name himself and his father, and something of his history. The fact that he had come to the Troad at a very young age from Thessaly itself, not very far from the land where Achilles had grown up, was of academic interest only to Achilles. It explained his unaccented speech, and it meant that logistically, ransom might be more easily sent to his father, Peleus, than to himself, waging war over here across the stormy sea. That was acceptable, though: the victory in fight and the glory belonged to Achilles, and he was happy for his father to add to his herds of cattle as a result.

Phoenix, however, grew visibly disturbed when Achilles told him, sitting at the evening meal and dividing the meat between them. "The son of _Menoetius_? Did you never listen to your father's stories?"

Achilles drew up, a little bit defensively. "The interesting stories, yes. Not those where he talked about his great pietas at my age and how it won him a goddess for a bride. I think I'd remember if Menoetius were on the Argo."

Covering his face with his hands, Phoenix sighed. "No, but he was one of your father's guest-friends when he was young. I'm sure he told you."

Definitely one of the pietas stories, then, but Achilles bit his tongue, because he had more important things to think about, such as what this meant for him. "Then I can't ransom him?"

"No, and you shouldn't even have fought him. Did he say what he's doing living and fighting here?"

"He collapsed again in the middle of my questioning him. I thought perhaps he was a mercenary."

"Perhaps. But the fact that you nearly killed the son of a guest-friend of your father does not bode well. You should make a sacrifice to appease Zeus, the protector of travelers."

Achilles made the sacrifice, but if Zeus heard his prayer, he did not answer it by making the situation easier. Patroclus, son of Menoetius, when he could sit propped up--with a flash of fear in his grey eyes when he recognized Achilles and for a moment of chill fright expected to be killed on the spot--and answer questions more clearly, told how he had killed a friend when they were both very small, and had to flee into exile.

"It was an accident," he insisted, clenching his teeth, perhaps against the pain of his wounds, perhaps against the memories.

"I believe you," Achilles said and gave him a two handled wine-cup, helping to hold it steady while he drank. "You seemed honorable, when I saw you fight."

"Now what?" Patroclus asked, returning the cup and sinking back down onto the haphazard pile of cloaks and mantles that served as his bed. He closed his eyes as though he no longer cared and asked only out of indifferent curiosity. "You will win no ransom for me."

"That will be a matter for the council," Achilles answered. "I know of no precedent. Perhaps one of the elders will."

* * *

If Achilles had been hoping for help from the council, he refused to accept any that was offered. All agreed that he could not kill the captive himself, and that it was well that at the last minute Hera had put it into his head to save him rather than dishonor his father inadvertently. It was too bad there was no ransom in it for any of them, but they agreed that it was no shame for any of the other Achaeans to take him off Achilles' hands and do the deed themselves. In single combat, if it be decided that was necessary to satisfy the honor of all parties involved, or as a sacrifice to the gods, if more drastic measures were called for.

But Achilles growled at the suggestion of anyone else getting the glory of the kill. He'd marked this man out for himself from the beginning, and it was bad enough in the heat of battle when someone anticipated him in seizing his prey. He was not about to stand by and let it be taken from him in war council if there were any alternative. In truth, no one was surprised: if Achilles was not known for greed, he was jealous of his honor, and solving a problem in a united, cooperative fashion had never been as important as doing things his way.

The other possibility, letting Patroclus go free to find yet a third home for himself, would be even more humiliating for the warrior who had captured him, and that was out of the question.

So, dissatisfied, Achilles dissolved the council with a pound of the speaking staff against the ground in emphasis of his final pronouncement. "Patroclus, son of Menoetius, is my captive, under my protection, until such time as I decide what to do with him."

There was a mutter, "May Zeus deliver us from the unmanageable spirit of the son of Peleus," but Achilles chose to pretend he hadn't heard it, as he stalked out of the meeting place. No one else had guessed what Phoenix had: that something indefinable had caught his eye. It wasn't the arrows of Eros, it was too slight for that, but it was weaving its way insidiously through every decision he made on the subject, like a silvery thread almost too fine to be seen except when the light glanced off it.

Everyone had their reasons for why you took one man captive and killed another: this one put you in mind of a childhood bully, that one of a favorite uncle. One looked and claimed to be particularly wealthy, another had a scar or small disfigurement that struck you as particularly unsightly. For Achilles, sometimes it was a moment of grace coupled with fire from his opponent, and he would pull his thrusts.

Back at his camp, he sat down beside the sleeping prisoner and stared at him. Phoenix was surely right: he couldn't be going soft. He didn't know how. Whatever influenced his reasons for capturing men, he always took the spoils matter-of-factly, and the war went on, and his reputation grew. Only this time had he taken the unusual step of saving one who lay unconscious, and that one step led to another, until he was now in this predicament.

If this was Hera's idea, the gods had a sense of humor.

Patroclus woke while Achilles thought, and he squeezed his eyes shut as soon as he saw Achilles, and he swallowed. Then he opened them again, clearly fighting for calmness, if not resignation. He spoke slowly and deliberately. "You've come to kill me, then. You are Achilles, and they say you never spare anyone who asks, so I will not ask with vain words. If you might strike quickly and surely, and if, for the sake of the black earth that nurtured and bore us both, you might burn my body instead of leaving it as a feast for the dogs."

He grunted from the exertion of that speech, and even expecting imminent death, he tried illogically to shift himself a little into a position more comfortable for his wounds.

Strangely, it was the reminder that he never did grant release to anyone who asked that reassured Achilles, breaker of men. He explained the situation as briefly as possible, and when he finished, Patroclus groaned. "You should have killed me! I thought my soul had already gone into the houses of Hades, and now I wake to find I must wait."

Achilles laid a light hand on his mess of light brown hair, sun-bleached on top. "Sleep. You will not be slain this day."

With this comfort, Patroclus fell once more into a deep, healing sleep, wearied past all his strength.

* * *

Patroclus grew even angrier as he recovered from his wounds and remained in Achilles' keeping. "You can't kill or ransom me, you won't release me, and you refused to allow anyone at the council to fight and kill me. So am I to remain here like a captive woman?" he demanded. Now that he was up and moving about, his color was high, and his cheeks flushed easily under the bronze hue lent to them by the sun.

"I hadn't thought that far ahead," Achilles admitted, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. He'd wandered the beach all night, trying to devise a solution. "I only knew what I couldn't do, at the council."

"You should have killed me in battle!" Where Achilles would have forced the matter, though, lunged for his sword and demanded a fight to the death on the spot, Patroclus obeyed the command to wait until a decision was reached. Tightening his lips, he changed the subject with a jerk of his chin toward the fire. Achilles nodded, and they began to prepare the morning meal together. The silence was odd, one Achilles could have sworn would be comfortable if not for the thick tension overlaying every word or glance they ever exchanged.

 _You can't keep him_ , Phoenix's voice said.

At last Achilles broke it. "I saved you because you fought well and honorably, not so that you would lie idle in my camp. I will see to a resolution by the time we move from this place," he promised, somewhat stiffly.

It was not much of a promise: that was the latest a resolution could be put off. Already, as Phoenix had predicted, the men had begun to grow restless. They might think it well that Achilles had been spared a violation of the rules of guest-host relations, but with each passing day that Patroclus spent in the camp, the deaths and wounds of some of the soldiers went unavenged by blood or gold.

The captive in question only nodded, and Achilles was not a good enough judge of men's faces or bodies to see anything they chose to keep hidden. He went on pulling the chunks of roasted meat from the spits, hoping for a swift resolution to his own impatience and confusion.

* * *

Achilles lay in fevered, pulsing half-dreams of using everyone who came beneath his spear according to his will; of total submission to him without thought of self; of his own gratification and glory magnified without end. When he woke, he rose and shook himself from the shame. They were only idle fancies, no more than when he imagined the Achaeans, in recognition that he was a better fighter and a better king to his men by far than Agamemnon, granting to him the leadership of this expedition to Troy. These were false dreams, in no way according to the order of things.

He returned to his habit of walking up and down the shore, trying to regain his wits, and even plunged into the dangerous night waters, trusting that no harm would come to him there, the son of a sea goddess. He was beginning now to realize that his desires were contradictory, and he knew in any case that Phoenix was right, desire could not rule his actions, only _themis_ , right custom.

* * *

The army of the Achaeans assembled to march forth with the rising of the sun. The council held the afternoon before was fraught with tedium, and Achilles shifted from foot to foot. He spoke whenever his turn came, giving logistical details and advice, but in his mind he was reviewing his speech.

The question of what to do with the unransomable captive in the Myrmidon camp was only one of many details, neither first nor last, and Achilles hoped the length of the meeting would mean no one would be inclined overmuch to press the issue. He spoke.

"Patroclus, son of Menoetius, fell to me in the sack of this city. I had hoped to sell him, but the father of gods and men did not will that it would be so. Menoetius was a guest-friend of my father Peleus in days past, and still they live as neighbors in Thessaly, the rich earth that nourished me." Patroclus' words came unbidden into his prepared speech. "Had he brought his son to my father's court, Patroclus might today be one of the Myrmidons, among whom I rule. But he brought him instead to be raised in the Troad, and he has fought and slain men of the Achaean army, and for our griefs he must pay.

"The son of Menoetius shall remain in the Myrmidon ships and in our camp for the space of a year, performing such tasks as shall be required of him. A captive he must be, and in service, but according to the custom of hospitality between his father and mine, I will allow no harm to come to him. When a year and a day have passed, he may go forth according to his own will, with all debts having been paid."

It was Nestor who reached for the speaking staff from him, and Achilles suppressed a sigh. He was not the only one: they all wanted to get out of the heat as soon as they could.

"Achilles, you have spoken in moderation and not at all like one of your years. But still I am older, and I have seen..."

 _Three generations of men_ , Achilles moved his tongue silently in his mouth, mimicking the next words, and only half following. With Chiron's teachings in mind, he had saved the strongest point of his argument for last, not using all his weapons until others had had their say.

"But still it is difficult for mortals to judge all these matters aright." Achilles focused again, because Nestor seemed to be getting to the point. "A woman is like a dog; she may be taken from her father or husband and given to a new master, and she will obey him. A man is like a wolf: he may be born into captivity, and then he will have a slavish nature, but if he is a man of honor before he is captured, his spirit will not yield, and he will be a danger to all. If this man becomes a slave willingly, he will show himself to be of base stock, and bring disgrace upon all his forefathers.

"Better to leave him on an island, to fend for himself or pray the gods for salvation. We did this for Philoctetes in the first year of the war, when a snake bite on his heel festered beyond any man's power to heal, and no one could bear the stench. Then we left him, our companion, grieving on the island of Lemnos. Surely the same measure is called for now."

Agamemnon took the staff then. "Castrate him and put him in with Briseis," was his suggestion, and he smirked when Achilles snarled. It was no secret that Achilles looked with more favor on men than on women, and it was rarely a secret who had gotten lucky, or who hoped to. But Agamemnon provoked Achilles at every opportunity, with every arrow in his quiver, never even needing to know which barbs landed, or why. He was not so subtle. He merely flaunted his authority to mean Achilles could not cuff him casually as he could have a mere soldier, and in return Achilles challenged that authority in every way he could.

Achilles kept his temper for the moment, though. "It is not satisfactory to me that he be released, or that he be harmed or slain by another. I weary myself fighting for the sake of the two sons of Atreus, Menelaus and Agamemnon the leader of men, and I claim to be by far the best of the Achaeans at fighting. The reward of my toils, however small it is, must be mine.

"There is precedent for these measures. Did not Heracles, the very son of Zeus, serve under Eurystheus, a lesser man than himself, because Hera begrudged him his due? And was not Heracles elevated to Olympus upon his death, escaping the grim fates of Hades, as a reward for those very labors?" The solution was humiliating, and sufficient punishment, but not necessarily unheroic. 

"Let the son of Menoetius submit to his betters, and serve for a year. He will not lay hands upon me, constrained by the same bonds that keep me from harming him. There will be no danger from him, and at the end of his service, he may take up a weapon again without shame."

The Achaeans murmured approval among themselves. The example of Heracles had set everything in a different light, and even the time-honored expedient of abandonment, the same action taken to expose unwanted children without committing the crime of kinslaying, was not more satisfactory than bringing this interminable council to a conclusion.


End file.
